I think I remember, back in the day, people using pieces of formica to make skis. It may be formable where if you heat it you can curl up the front end. Epoxy on brackets that mount to the axles, and a spring to pull the front of the ski up. In fact, there was an articl on making your own skis in RCM magazine a bunch of years ago that someone may have laying around.

I cut some skis out of a scrap piece of 4 mm coroplast. Each ski was cut as a single piece, folded and glued. A piece of thin plywood and balsa was inserted to reinforce the axle area. The first 6 flights on my 60" Great Planes ElectriCub were done with them this January. I attached an elastic band to the front to provide tension against a thin piece of nylon fishing line that was attached to the back. It works, its light, its basically free and probably is available in a variety of colours, whats not to like about that?

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I cut some skis out of a scrap piece of 4 mm coroplast. Each ski was cut as a single piece, folded and glued. A piece of thin plywood and balsa was inserted to reinforce the axle area. The first 6 flights on my 60" Great Planes ElectriCub were done with them this January. I attached an elastic band to the front to provide tension against a thin piece of nylon fishing line that was attached to the back. It works, its light, its basically free and probably is available in a variety of colours, whats not to like about that?

I like it. I came upon a piece of very thin aluminum scrap at a build site (thin enough to cut with scissors), which I think could work well as a base--how well does wood slide on snow? Anyway, what you've done seems like it would work well and I may go that route instead of paying a lot for skiis. The fold at the end though--it seems low--have you had problems with the skiis digging into little mounds of snow?

I wonder if 1/8" ply, if soaked in water for a while, would bend without falling apart and keep its shape into that of a ski...

Yes JWilliams2, I didn't put enough up twist to the ski tips. The glue was dry by the time I noticed it. The plane has flipped on an attempted takeoff due to the skis digging into a drift. I built a set out of thinner coroplast for a smaller, parkflyer and had more curve to the ski tips. They had no problem in powdered snow.